Revealing
by sorcerousfang
Summary: A collection of one-shots in which Danny accidentally reveals his secret alter ego. Light-hearted, random, and sometimes ridiculous.
1. Cleaning Up

**So, I shouldn't be starting new things, but I think I can get away with this. I'll update as I come up with ideas. No 'Danny saves (insert character here) and accidentally reveals his secret' here. That's for another story that I might get around to writing if I ever finish everything else I started.**

 **I should note that these might throw canon to the wind (aside from the typical firing of Phantom Planet into deep space where it will never be seen again), because sometimes my brain likes something that doesn't make sense.**

* * *

There were several beats as they simply stared at each other, vacuum whirring in the background. It was likely very difficult for her to process, seeing Danny _Phantom_ meticulously clearing vibrant green webs from the walls via levitating while Jazz dusted the furniture on the ground.

"Mom…" Jazz began quietly. "I can explain."

Her eyes didn't leave him, ghost him, even as she nodded. She was angry. Silence was not something she was prone to even under the worst circumstances, and he'd very rarely seen her speechless with anger. As it was, he felt like he was locked in something like an old western showdown, his mother just waiting for him to make the movement that would signal her draw.

He swallowed thickly. He did _not_ want Jazz to be at the mercy of their mother when she was that angry. Letting a ghost into their house was a treachery beyond any other, especially given their disposition toward the entities. He needed to calm the storm going on in her mind.

"Jazz, wait," he said, switching off the vacuum. "I'll explain."

A twitch from their mother, but still silence.

"But…"

 _Your secret_ was the unspoken end of that protest, and he shook his head in response. He turned his attention to the blue-jumpsuited woman in the doorway and took a deep breath.

"…Can you trust me for a moment?" Dumb question, he knew, but one he needed to say. "I'll keep my hands on the vacuum, and I'm going to return to the ground."

Her eyes narrowed in scrutiny, probably trying to dissect his motives, or understand why he wanted to _return_ to the ground. He waited, not daring to move before she agreed.

"…You, a ghost, are cleaning my house," she finally said. "I don't trust you, but I want an explanation."

"And you'll get it, I promise."

"Fine."

He nodded, and planted his feet on the ground.

"Okay, Ecto-arachnids make a huge mess," he explained. "I stirred up a nest by accident. This…was a whole lot worse ten minutes ago."

"Ecto-arachnids."

"Right."

He glanced at his sister, deflated a little, and turned back to his mom.

"Jazz didn't invite me in. I've been here. I…well…it's me, Mom." To those words he received something of a confused and mildly disgusted look. He tried not to take it personally, but he winced nonetheless before continuing. "A white ring is going to appear around me. It's not an attack. It's just what appears when I switch forms."

This time he didn't wait for permission. He just reached into himself to the warmth of his human half and let the transformation take place. When white hair and green eyes were replaced by black and blue, he gave a wry smile. His mother looked…well, as pale as if she'd seen a ghost.

Then her head tilted in a half head shake, a smile trying to be a frown consuming her features as she closed her eyes. It was the same look she got when she finally figured out that annoying little something keeping her from calibrating a weapon just right. Something that she knew she should have seen long before.

"Danny _Phantom_ ," she breathed. "Danny _Fenton_. It's so obvious it's completely inconspicuous. It's genius."

"No, Danny's just ridiculously uncreative," Jazz supplied.

"Oh, like you ever come up with more creative names," he quipped.


	2. Dog Walking

**Also should mention I don't own Danny Phantom. You'll see characters repeated in the future. If I manage to inspire you for some reason, give me a head's up so I can read what you do with it!**

* * *

"Cujo!"

"Pooky!"

Rounding the corner, Danny didn't even have a chance to put on the brakes before colliding with his big phan and worst bully, Dash Baxter. He had about two seconds of consciousness to appreciate how hard the football player's skull was, and then everything went black.

Dash, for his part, was struck dumb both by the blow to his head and by the person he'd run into. For a few moments his gaze went back and forth between the ghost on the ground and the two dogs circling each other in greeting. He found his voice after everything finally processed – he'd just knocked out his hero with an unintentional tackle he might have been proud of under different circumstances.

"Oh man, Danny Phantom!"

He scrambled to his side and tried to rouse him, but shrank back when a bright ring of light suddenly appeared around the waist of the ghost and split, traveling in opposite directions. As they moved toward his head and feet, his black jumpsuit was replaced with jeans and a t-shirt, and when Dash was left staring at a black-haired _human_ teenager rather than the ghostly hero, he was again trying to process what had just occurred. This time proved a bit more difficult.

"Fenton…?"

Seeing his favorite punching bag in place of his favorite hero was an odd sight to say the least. To one part of him it made absolutely no sense, and the other part of him was fishing up coincidences he hadn't realized were coincidences before. The unpopular kid had an uncanny ability to disappear whenever the ghost made an appearance, and that time the two of them were shrunk, the ghost knew the layout of the absurd home of the Fentons shockingly well (not to mention all of the costume changes he went through). When Danny _Fenton_ was shoved off of the ghost pirate ship, Danny _Phantom_ was the one who came back.

Dash felt like an idiot.

Danny groaned, and the oddly green dog decided then that Pooky was of less importance when compared to licking the face of the semi-conscious teen, and proceeded to do so until he was completely coherent.

"Huh…ugh, gross! Cujo, stop it! Cujo! Down boy! Down!"

He broke into laughter partway through the attack of affection, and when the dog finally calmed down, it was as though the light dawned. Danny froze, staring at his fleshy, _definitely not covered with a white glove_ hand, before slowly turning to the wide-eyed jock. His mouth opened and closed for a moment before his gaze fell to the small not-oddly green dog, whose studded collar really clashed with its big head.

"…Honestly, Dash, I thought you would have a German Shepard or a Dane or something less…cuddly," he noted, avoiding the bigger conversation. "Though based on your teddy bear collection, I guess I should have expected a Chihuahua."

Dash blanched.

"How do you know about that?!"

"Technus tossed me into your closet during that big party you threw forever ago."

"You tell _anyone_ about that, I swear Fen- _turd_ , you're dead," he threatened.

"Already half dead, technically."

Dash paused, not sure what to think of that, and glanced away for a moment.

"Then _all_ dead," he continued.

"You keep my secret, I'll keep yours?" Danny asked.

"Deal."


	3. Suits

**Slightly different direction for this one.**

* * *

Jack had realized something one day.

It was while he was having a dad moment. With fudge. Really good Fenton fudge (invented recently after a long process of trial and error that may or may not have caused several explosions and new ghostly entities to roam the city).

Said moment came when he was fondly looking over the HAZMAT suits of his children. Or should have been looking over _suits_ with emphasis on the plural, except that there was only one. Jazz's was hung where it almost always was, looking exactly like her mother's. The girl had adamantly refused to join in on the ghostly business of her parents when the suit was made, so without any personal parameters to go by, they simply made it to match. The sticker of his face had sadly been removed at some point, but at least it was seeing some use.

There was a particular white and black suit missing from the rack. Danny had been mildly interested, enough to give them a preference of color scheme (or lack thereof), and while it had seen little use afterward, Jack had never thought much of it since Danny had become increasingly skittish about anything to do with ghosts. It should have been on the rack.

But it wasn't.

Usually Jack wrote such things off, but it stuck out in his mind for days afterward, and annoyed him enough to glance in the pile of laundry on the floor of the boy's room the following week. Not there either. Or in the washer or dryer, nor the various laundry baskets that had accumulated clothing.

Granted, it could be somewhere else. For all he knew, the boy had gotten rid of it (a thought he didn't want to dwell on). It was just that there was something about it that really bugged him, and when something really bugged him, he had to figure it out.

Why he didn't ask Danny about it himself? Well, Jack chalked that up to pure stubbornness.

A few days after his search of the laundry, a short late-night run-in with the resident ghost boy left him with a frown on his face. There had been a pause in the fight when the boy had just floated there, nursing a wounded left arm, and it struck him that aside from green eyes, the ghost had a decidedly boring lack of color about him. Just like the missing suit of his son's.

When he and his wife had returned home to the comfort of their lab (and the recent project that was wreaking havoc on their sleep patterns) he saw his own reflection on the metal door of the ghost portal and realized the ghost boy was wearing a HAZMAT suit. It was opposite of his son's, black where it should be white and vice versa, and there was a funny logo where his face should have been, but otherwise it was exactly the same. His hair was opposite, too, now that he thought about it.

There were several things about the ghost boy that were decidedly _not_ opposite from his son, though.

"Jack, is everything alright?" Maddie suddenly interrupted his thoughts. "You've been awfully quiet."

"Oh, nothing at all! I was just thinking about how great I look in orange!"

…Jack needed fudge and he needed it now.


	4. Trash

**And a very short one.**

* * *

"So…can you, like, _not_ tell anyone about this?"

The janitor still looked a bit pale about the whole thing. Danny figured just about anyone would, if a kid suddenly phased out of the trash can a moment before it was grabbed. The older man nodded nonetheless.

Dash would definitely be getting his own for this. Being dumped in the garbage was most certainly not what Danny wanted to do today, and being found out by the school's janitor was less than amusing. He should have gone invisible _as well as_ intangible, but who was going to be near the trash can in this part of the school?

Who else but the janitor, who Danny had conveniently forgotten about.

Yes, Dash would be paying. Poindexter be damned.


	5. Puns

**Hey, look! A new idea!**

* * *

Danny did not always think when he ran off to duck and change.

Ghosts had an annoying habit of showing up at the school at the worst times. Like, right in between classes, specifically when his lunch was starting, and when everyone he knew was out somewhere in the hallways. Tucker and Sam had gone ahead of him, either to get a jump on the meat (Tucker), or a jump on protesting it (Sam), so his usual cover was gone. Dash was too preoccupied with screaming to feel like shoving him in his locker (he'd used that scenario for cover often enough), and the Janitor was currently cowering in the janitorial closet, so that convenient location was out.

So he jogged down the hall, toward the ghost, since everyone was running away from it. Not entirely a thing Danny Fenton would normally do, but hey; most of the students and staff wrote him off as an idiot anyway.

…That was a depressing thought.

Danny shook his head, and continued running.

Not every ghost (he hoped) knew his human identity, and he liked to keep it that way when he could. When a green-skinned, red eyed something that might have been a rabbit if someone had a wild enough imagination rounded the corner, that instinct to hide his human half took control, and he ducked into the room to his right. That instinct was probably fear, but he liked to think otherwise.

"You got this, Danny," he reminded himself, taking control of the adrenaline. A deep breath and his signature _going ghost_ phrase later, and he felt like he could take on the world.

That is…until he realized something important.

He didn't have super hearing, but it didn't take super hearing to catch the classical music blaring through the headphones. That was probably why the man was still around – he hadn't heard any of the screaming or the sirens over the music of…was that opera? Ew.

Wide eyes were staring directly at him, and the distinctive bald head was like a beacon shining on his mistake.

Never, _never_ , assume a room is empty, Fenton.

"The Phantom of the Opera…" the man said as he slowly removed his headphones.

Danny was sure the expression on his face had shifted to one of complete annoyance.

"That's a bad pun and you know it, Mr. Lancer."

He had expected a book title one-liner from him (the man was predictable in that respect), but not that one. _Oliver Twist_ or _A Tale of Two Cities_ felt more appropriate based on titles alone. One suggested a twist the man hadn't seen coming, and the other made him think of a person with two sides to them. Just because he happened to see _Danny Phantom_ while he was listening to opera…

Was he actually having this debate in his head?

"Well forgive me if my puns aren't exactly on point, Mr. Fenton," the English teacher recovered, leveling the teen with a look that still carried a bit of disbelief. "I'm happy to know that you know what a pun is, however. Looks like some of my teaching has come through."

Danny scoffed, "Please, I've _been_ a master of puns and witty comebacks. Ever watched my verbal tennis matches with the ghosts I fight?"

"Can't say that I have."

"I usually kill it out there."

"Was that supposed to be a pun about ghosts being dead?"

"…I said usually."

"Don't give up your day job. Speaking of which…" he trailed off, looking around him as if he would get some sort of visual answer.

"Uh, yeah, you should probably-"

He was cut off when the almost-rabbit crashed through the wall of the teacher's lounge. Both he and Lancer yelped in surprise, and Danny went straight into hero-mode.

He grabbed Lancer and made them both intangible, much to the older man's terror. A few moments later and they had several more walls between them and the ghost. Danny let the man go.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"So…you'll keep this a secret, right?"

"You get your report to A- level and I'll consider it."

Danny raised a hand to protest, but the look on Lancer's face told him even the hero gig wouldn't be getting him points. With a reluctant nod, he turned around and went back to trying to save the school.

"Knock 'em dead!" Lancer called after him.

"That pun is no better than mine!"

* * *

 **Honestly, I know Mr. Lancer was written to be a bad teacher in a lot of respects, but as a teacher myself, I can't help but like him at times. My random plot bunnies that include him usually make him a bit more respectable. One of these days I'll finish and post one.**


	6. Obstacle Course

**I get to sub for a P.E. teacher tomorrow. I wonder which character will be included in this scene?**

* * *

That one time Dash had been assigned as Danny's training partner was practically torture, but compared to this? Danny was pretty sure he preferred another day with Dash.

Ms. Tetzlaff had seen improvement, but apparently not enough to completely save his floundering P.E. grade, which had prompted this monster of an obstacle course set up around the track field. It was also why his Friday afternoon was being spent here and _not_ marathoning horror movies with Sam and Tucker, who had wished him luck and skipped off laughing at a joke he didn't get.

He was pretty sure Sam had set him up and Tucker was in on it. This was probably payback for replacing her bat decorations with fluffy pink fuzz balls.

Tucker must have ratted on him.

Darn it.

"Alright, Fenton," Tetzlaff boomed. He was glad she had forgone the whistle – with just one student, it wasn't very necessary – but she did have a megaphone in her hand, and Danny didn't like the looks of it. "Make it through this course in five minutes, and your grade might hit a B."

"Five minutes?!" he started, looking between her and the field incredulously. He may have beefed up a little, but covering this thing in five for a… "Wait, did you say a B?"

His thoughtful tone brought a large smile to her face.

" _Maybe_ a B," she reiterated. " _If_ you actually make an effort out here today. You passed the fitness test, but you've barely participated in class. Take this seriously, for once."

He held his tongue on the remark he wanted to make about the multitude of reasons he didn't participate (Dash, soreness from ghost fights, Dash, fear of revealing his secret, Dash), and instead repeated her, " _Maybe_ a B."

That wouldn't hurt. Mom would stop complaining about at least one grade for a while.

"We're here for an hour, so take your time to walk the course. Practice any obstacles you aren't sure about. You either tell me when you're ready, or I'll let you know when thirty minutes has passed; whichever comes first."

Danny smirked. This could go well.

He took his time, walked the course, and explored the obstacles he couldn't immediately figure the best action for. Most of these he could visualize as obstacles for Phantom, if Phantom were grounded and permanently tangible. Actually, if he was lucky, he might be able to get away with a little bit of ghostly activity to help him out. There were some shortcuts he could take advantage of.

That depended on Tetzlaff, of course. Danny gave her a long look from the starting point. She was busy setting her timer, megaphone cradled under the crook of her arm.

He took a deep breath.

"On your mark, Fenton!"

His stance tightened.

"GO!"

He took off. There weren't any A-listers here to taunt him, no curious eyes save for Tetzlaff's, and that made Danny pretty happy. If he treated the obstacle course like training for ghost attacks, this didn't seem like such a bad deal.

The first three obstacles went pretty smoothly.

It was the fourth one where things went wrong.

He was climbing a rope leading up to a platform that would direct him to a set of monkey bars. Rope-climbing was not his favorite obstacle as a human (as a ghost, gravity didn't apply as much), but he could manage it now, especially if he visualized it as cheese.

"Four minutes, Fenton!"

The last thing he was expecting was Tetzlaff's voice to come booming through her megaphone, way too loud for someone back at the starting point. He started with a yelp, his hands slipped, and suddenly gravity reminded him that he was human, and it applied very much right now.

Instinctively, Danny fought against the fall. His decent slowed and he landed neatly on his feet, hand flying to his heart in an attempt to slow it down a little.

"Oh, man, that was close."

"Did you just…float?"

His heart was _not_ going to calm down now.

He jumped for the second time, spinning around to find that the person he thought was still back at the starting point was definitely not still back at the starting point. No wonder her megaphone sounded way too close; it _was_.

"Ms. Tetzlaff!" he squeaked. Her question caught up with him. "What? NO! No, how would I even do that; it's not like I'm a ghost or something. That would be weird, don't you think? Can't be a ghost."

His reply came out in a way-too-fast ramble to be a decent cover-up, but he hoped Ms. Tetzlaff would buy it.

"Look, Fenton, I know Physics – There is no way you fell from that height and landed on your feet without having to bend your knees. You'd be in a load of pain right now, not to mention you wouldn't be standing. Also, people don't just slow down as they fall."

"Wait, you're the _gym_ teacher," was all he could say in response to that. Shouldn't someone in science be giving him that sort of logical breakdown?

"Physics. Physical. Physical Education," she deadpanned.

Danny felt like he could see the word being underlined over her head.

He also felt like the world's biggest idiot.

"I…wow. How did I not notice that?"

"Probably because everyone calls it _gym_."

"Oh."

There was a really long silence Danny wasn't sure how to break. Tetzlaff was obviously thinking, and he didn't like that at all. When people think, they come to conclusions, and he didn't always like those conclusions.

Eventually she huffed out a laugh.

"I suppose a lot of things are overlooked when they have a different name, though. Fenton and Phantom, for instance?"

He definitely didn't like this conclusion.


End file.
